On Friday 25th February at 11.00 Rt Hon Sir John Redwood D.Phil FCSI will give a lecture in the Old Library, All Souls College Oxford on the topic of the long road to net zero.
The lecture will chart the continued dependence of the world on fossil fuels this decade. It will assess the growing divide in approach between the UK and EU on the one hand and China, Russia and India on the other. It will ask how green are various technologies recommended for the transition and warn against compliant countries importing products with a high carbon content to lower their own CO2 scores. It will argue that the green revolution needs to be a popular revolution, driven by the wishes and needs of billions of consumers, just as the digital revolution has been. It will examine the way in which China and Russia might exploit their positions in industrial manufacture and oil and gas to shift the balance of world power.
To register your attendance, please visit the following weblink: https://www.asc.ox.ac.uk/event/long-road-net-zero
For those attending virtually, Microsoft Teams meeting links will be sent out 1 hour beforehand.
February 8, 2022
should ask them to broadcast it live on the web
good luck
February 8, 2022
or provide a transcript later, please?
February 9, 2022
I agree. Or at least allow us to view it after.
February 20, 2022
Yes, video after the event would be great. I don’t do Microsoft Teams or Zoom etc.
February 9, 2022
Ditto
February 20, 2022
GB News will be interested and, I imagine, would want to report the conclusions and offer an interview.
I have registered to attend.
February 20, 2022
Net stupid is a false dawn. It is a pointless theatrical debate. Based on a false narrative. Until there is a reliable alternative energy source there is no need to waste a penny of tax on it. Why not debate witchcraft?
The eco loons need to be denounced at every opportunity. They need to be ousted from civil service, govt, local govt, university, schools.
February 20, 2022
And 10 Downing Street.
February 21, 2022
Please please please check out the futility angle. CO2 does not drive the climate. The globe is warming beneficially and not very much. There’s no way that the rise in CO2 can be checked – it’s mostly natural or Chinese. So start believing the science of low Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity numbets
February 8, 2022
Net Zero is nothing less than Marxism wrapped up in the cloak of environmental concern. To present it as anything other than that is an act of gross deceit.
All is now political in the authoritarian West and Tory and slug like Labour MPs are quite content to jump on the filthy Neo-Marxist, Davos bandwagon
February 8, 2022
It is certainly not sensible science, economics, politics or energy engineering.
The solutions proposed by our government wind, solar, EVs, heat pumps, “green” or otherwise hydrogen, bikes, walking, public transport, imported wood to burn at Drax… do not even save any (or any significant) CO2 when properly accounted for. EVs actually cause more compared to keeping your old car for longer. This as the cars and batteries have to be mined, manufactured, charges and recycled and we have no zero carbon electricity (or even sufficient low carbon electricity) to charge then with anyway.
At best these measures just export CO2 and the related jobs with them.
In any case CO2 is simply not a serious problem & there is no imminent climate catastrophe. On balance it is just net beneficial plant, tree and crop food. Slightly warmer is net beneficial too.
R&D for better nuclear, better batteries, synthetic fuels, better insulation etc. makes sense but the roll out of duff technology before it works or is remotely cost effective (using tax breaks and subsidies) is clearly damaging & totally counter productive.
February 20, 2022
+many
It’s all about depopulation.
How can it be anything else?
February 20, 2022
If it was about depopulation, why are they importing so many illegals? In any case this country is overpopulated.
February 21, 2022
‘…depopulation’? if only..
February 21, 2022
lifel. – unfortunately I have never seen JR agreeing with you on any point , hence he doesn’t bring up any of your analysis in the HoC or appropriate venues.
February 8, 2022
Folk might club together for a memorial bench for you one day, Dom.
It could say “In Memory Of Dom, Who Hated The View From This Bench, Like Everything Else”
February 8, 2022
Well….thats elevated the debate
February 20, 2022
If the bench is anywhere on the sunlit uplands, it might … elevate the debate.
February 8, 2022
God ! That was funny ! (I happen to agree with Dom though.)
February 9, 2022
I’d make you one out of broken Jaffa orange crates, the graffiti might say ‘Here sat the confused, miserable whinge who complained about everything and anything in his search for a mixture of socialism, communism and utopia. Doubt he ever found it’
February 9, 2022
That reads like a whinge to me, Mick.
February 9, 2022
Your bench would of course be facing the other way from everyone else’s however lovely the view from their bench.
February 10, 2022
Nah, only seventeen million out of sixty-seven million voted Leave, NS, and about two million of those have since turned up their toes.
February 20, 2022
The electorate for the UK referendum on the EU was 46,500 million, not 67 million.
Voters die after every election, it does not invalidate the result as far as I’m aware.
February 20, 2022
I read a wishful loser in that comment. Plenty of the innocent youth who voted for holidays in the sun have grown up and realise the facts of being under the eurocracy. Vaccines anyone, migrant management anyone, economy anyone … rampant eurocracy bureaucracy and empire building for all in Europe and the war building on their eastern borders thanks to that expansionist drive in the eurocrats.
February 20, 2022
You can pretend that the fifty million people in the UK who did not vote Leave do not exist, or worse, try to rub their faces in that stuff that you call brexit.
I think that they will have very different ideas, as they progressively see and smell what it is.
February 20, 2022
Toe curling comes about by reading embarrassingly ignorant quotes from NLH
February 20, 2022
I suspect many more have seen the error of their ways and joined Leave.
February 20, 2022
SM indeed and many younger voters (usually to the left) become rather more worldly wise and realistic as they age, so as to replace these deceased voters.
“Show me a young Conservative and I’ll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I’ll show you someone with no brains.”
— Winston Churchill
In my case my brain always vetoed my heart’s views, once I was above about 10. It was a disaster that Blair’s appalling devolution arrangements allowed the socialists to lower the voting age. It will be down to 5 soon if they can get away with it. Much easier for socialist to convince people who have never paid taxes.
February 20, 2022
Of the over 60s most voted Leave.
Also, many of them sat the 11+, and most of them failed, going to sink schools so as not to waste specialist education on them.
I’d love to see a Venn diagram, of those exam results and referendum votes.
February 20, 2022
Disgusting comment Nottingham Lad.
February 20, 2022
NLH.Oh dear. Desperation.
February 20, 2022
+1 Dom, The big problem in Britain is that apart from a couple of dozen MP’s the MP ‘s both left and right are too young with little life experience to draw on. I think there really should be a minimum age for membership.
Most things in life repeat every forty or fifty years, those older will have seen most situations before and unlike those we have at present, will know the snags
February 20, 2022
Indeed let them vote for how their taxes are spend only once they have paid at least £50K of them perhaps?
February 20, 2022
MFD, To prove your point, you would really have to give examples of ‘things in life’ that ‘repeat every forty or fifty years’ and then show how changes in the social/political/environmental/educational/… surroundings can be thought so neutral that ‘those older’ would ‘have seen most situations before and’ would ‘know the snags’.
February 20, 2022
+100 Dom.
February 20, 2022
Indeed there is no need for net zero and anyway it will not indeed cannot really happen at least not until we get practical fusion reactors as:- 1. The risks from CO2 are greatly exaggerated, it is tree plant and crop food & probably on balance a net positive. 2 The “solutions” proposed wind, wave, public transport, tide, walking, hydrogen, solar, battery storage, cycling, EVs… do not really work in the main, not even in CO2 terms. 3. World cooperation would be needed to get to net zero and this will clearly never happen anyway witness Russia. 4. Exporting high energy industries from the UK them importing the goods and pretending that burning imported wood at Drax does nothing to reduce World CO2 levels either.
End of lecture perhaps?
February 20, 2022
DOM :
You are correct, it is a Marxist scam.
Firstly there is no climate crisis/anthropological global warming. The Earth started warming after the last ice age maximum 22,000 years ago and the Greenland ice core samples show the temperature to be most of the time since then above the current temperature and sometimes as much as 3 degrees C above and long before any anthropological CO2 production.
Secondly the activists want the West to unilaterally decarbonise in order to destroy its economy and then its democracy. If it was as serious as they suggest they would be camped outside the Chinese embassies demanding the Chinese stop building coal fired power stations. But they’re not.
And if, as we are told on this site by 2 posters, “wind is free”, then it would even make economic sense for the Chinese to build windmills instead of coal fired power stations. But they’re not, other than to develop them for sale to the West.
Thirdly, the climate change activists know that windmill power will be variable and intermittent as mitigating these dire features will be very, very expensive with current technology so the idea is to change electricity supply from the existing “supply matching demand” to “demand matching supply”.
Demand matching supply is the very definition of a Marxist economy.
February 8, 2022
“It will assess the growing divide in approach between the UK and EU on the one hand and China, Russia and India on the other.”
I think the UK is out on its own now that the EU has decided that gas (methane) and nuclear is green.
And President Biden upon his return from COP26 has increased fossil fuel production.
The Marxists at BEIS have convinced the PM (Oxford Classics, ancient literature and classical philosophy) that we can power our whole country on “the breezes that blow around these islands” (PM, Conservative Party conference speech October 2020).
Economic suicide.
February 9, 2022
+1
Unilateral Net Zero = Tories’ Poll Tax x 1000
Well underway by next general election.
February 20, 2022
Indeed. At least 1000 times worse than Poll Tax and Major’s moronic ERM/pre-EURO fiasco combined. Just like the ERM and the Poll Tax it is entirely self inflicted – economic and political insanity.
February 20, 2022
Economic, Political and defence suicide. BEIS or was it Carrie?
February 8, 2022
Could you squeeze in the topic of ‘the peoples consensus’ to adopting net-zero
February 8, 2022
If you are willing to upload it to this site or youtube I’d be very interested in listening to your wise words Sir J.
Thank you.
February 9, 2022
Ditto
February 9, 2022
Ditto
February 20, 2022
+10
February 21, 2022
ditto
February 8, 2022
I live in Oxford.How can I gain admission please ?
February 9, 2022
register here – https://www.asc.ox.ac.uk/event/long-road-net-zero
February 8, 2022
Will it be recorded John, and then made available to view, or will it steam live.
February 8, 2022
Autocorrect strikes again, “Steam”, …. will it be available to view live.
February 20, 2022
Do you really mean “stream” Alan?
February 8, 2022
Re the Tweet about domestic gas production.
The Green lobby insist that the North Sea is being subsidised by taxpayers. BP, Shell et al are effectively on negative tax rates even though they have made huge profits after the price increases.
Also, increased production is sold off to the highest bidder, it is not reserved for UK consumers. Throughout this crisis we have increased our gas exports and our own North Sea resources were not used to benefit UK consumers, despite them paying tax to support the industry.
What do you say to that?
reply. oil Cos pay 40% tax on U.K. profits. much gas is landed. Y pipe in U.K. and sold via our grid. limited capacity to export.
February 8, 2022
Sounds like an interesting lecture. It is limited to the clever folk at All Souls College though.
There really needs to be this sort of discussion when all the globalists turn up to the COP26 type gatherings in their private jets. Not that the globalists want to hear any alternative views of course. That said, it’s an important issue and hopefully different visions will gain traction and become difficult to ignore.
Reply It’s a public lecture
February 9, 2022
I am genuinely baffled why the government does not do more to promote deep geothermal commercial power plants. These could produce over 20% of the UK’s electricity requirements, and as this is done on land it is much easier than erecting and maintaining wind turbines at sea. Best of all, this energy is provided 24/7, so is constant and reliable. You’d have thought that a government comitted to green policies would go for this, but it seems commercial vested interests have led to bad and corrupt decision-making. Very sad.
February 9, 2022
X-Tory: Worldwide, Geothermal is not widely developed. This indicates that like tidal, wind and solar it only works economically in certain optimal locations. Governments can solve these problems by providing subsidies of hundreds of Billions.
We do not need the the government wasting even more of our money.
If it was viable private companies would be falling over themselves to invest in it.
Better to wait till that happens.
February 9, 2022
* Firstly, we DO have a few optimal locations here in England and Scotland.
* Secondly, the viability of different means of energy production has been completely skewed by the government subsidies you complain about, which is why geothermal energy has not been developed.
* And thirdly, given that the government is determined to engage in these subsidies then it would make more sense to direct them to an energy source which is reliable and not the likes of wind and solar which are not.
In an ideal world I agree there would be no subsidies or other such distortions of any kind, but this is not the reality, so we need to play the hand we are given and push the government to promote energy sources which will not let us down when they are needed most!
February 21, 2022
The Eden Project geothermal facility was heavily subsidised by the EU, and has suffered plenty of problems with pipe corrosion and depletion of the underground heat source.
February 9, 2022
Good morning – Again
And there you have it, the money quote !
One of the purposes of this CO2 scam is to offshore industry to other countries. They (governments and globalists) needed a way to allow them to close industries in the West and ship them to the East without raising too much suspicion. So the CO2 scam was invented to force industries to close and move.
Pure Socialism – From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.
February 9, 2022
Net Zero is another example of mass formation, based on the politicised science from 50 years ago. In the mean time, scientific understanding of what influences our weather has moved on . . . time to wake them up Sir John.
February 9, 2022
Dieter Helm, professor of Energy Policy at Oxford University, wrote in his BEIS 2017 “Cost of Energy Review”, pages viii (15) and ix (16) :
“The FiTs and other low-carbon CfDs should be gradually phased out, and merged into a unified
equivalent firm power (EFP) capacity auction. The costs of intermittency will then rest with those who cause them, and there will be a major incentive for the intermittent generators to contract with and invest in the demand side, storage and back-up plants.”
So, Sir John, at this lecture you should propose that at the next auction, the renewables generators bid their prices for energy based upon :
A binding contract to supply a defined and continuous, not intermittent, amount of power and thus to include the cost of their chosen form of non-fossil fuel grid stability and long-term backup.
This will define the cost of renewable energy, which will then provide the basis for the costing of implementing Net Zero.
February 9, 2022
First to repeat comments, would be good to have a YouTube or similar record of your talk Sir John.
The Net CO2 concept is yet another misleading approach. If serious need to aim for zero CO2 emissions from all manmade sources ( sorry person made sources ). In reality we just need to get the emission level down to that which can be re absorbed by nature.
Cutting down the rain forest and generating large amounts of heat don’t help.
Like wise increasing the population and covering the world in concrete is another factor in CO2 generation conveniently ignored as a politically hot potato.
What is the problem with leveling up ( to use the in fashion term) the balance of world power. America, UK and some EU countries use military aims to gain commercial advantage in the world of business at the risk of a hot war.
American Gas or Russian Gas is a text book example. Are the Americans really concerned with the issues in Ukraine ? Are they interested in mediating between the two parties involved as they did in Northern Ireland ?
February 9, 2022
Sir John,
Don’t forget to stress (at every opportunity) that plants – particularly food crops – grow much better with higher levels of CO2.
With farmland (perversely) being given over to the production of Bio-Diesel & Bio-Ethanol (which are no ‘greener’ than ‘normal’ Diesel or Ethanol), and the push for ‘rewilding’ of arable farmland, we are going to need more food crops…….
…….unless of course the programme really is to reduce national populations by the use of ‘vaccines’.
Let them have both barrels if you are able Sir.
GW
February 9, 2022
Sir John,
In your lecture you may like to include the enormous risks the UK faces as a result of a unilateral dash to net zero CO2 emissions via the electrification of everything and windmill energy route :
– What is the risk that windmills cannot provide continuous and sufficient power at an affordable price?
We are closing down our fossil fuel operations without yet running a fully operational non-fossil fuel system for just our electrical energy.
– What is the risk to us if other countries do not follow our net zero dash?
In which case will we become uncompetitive whilst spending money on reducing our miniscule 1% contribution to CO2 emissions and not on mitigating the effects of global warming if it comes?
What is the risk of rushing ahead and not picking the right technologies for energy production, transport and heating and thus wasting vast sums of money implementing sub-optimal technologies whilst the rest of the world leapfrog us with better options?
All forced into use through unpopular legislation and costly subsidies rather than by natural customer choice.
We rushed to implement DAB radio and as a result have a poorer quality system.
The BEIS Dec 2020 Energy White Paper states :
“We aim to build a commercially viable fusion power plant by 2040”
I have no idea if this is feasible, but if it is then we will have wasted enormous sums of money decarbonising our electricity by 2035 using windmills.
What is the risk to the UK of electrifying everything?
Will there be sufficient metals and minerals to achieve this transition?
How will we deal with emergencies when there is no electrical power?
Will we not be less secure as a result of increased exposure to hacking attacks on our electricity system – one successful hack and we have no power for communications, travel, heat, light, computers – the whole lot goes down.
February 20, 2022
O Richard. With over 150,000 people without power at this present time I am sure many are wondering if EVs are the answer to our prayers.
February 20, 2022
Much to be said for having gas, an open wood fire with a wood store, main electricity and a back up generator to keep the gas central heating, lights, computer & heating pump going when the electricity fails.
February 21, 2022
+1
February 9, 2022
I have registered and look forward to attending.
I have a fair idea what you will say Sir John and look forward to hearing opposing views to inform my position I hope they have something worthwhile and thought provoking to say. I also hope they attend with a similar open mind but do not hold out much hope.
Thank you
February 9, 2022
The fact that Ofgem can hold two remits, that of delivering Net Zero and at the same time protecting existing and future consumers, without exhibiting any signs of cognitive dissonance surely demonstrates that Net Zero is a religion.
February 20, 2022
Net Zero = rewriting the laws of physics.
February 20, 2022
Net Zero = social engineering us back to the 12th century with lords and serfs
February 21, 2022
Ed Miliband’s 2010 Energy Act redefined consumer interests to be anything that is in the interests of green policies. Thus there is no conflict in the minds of OFGEM.
February 20, 2022
Thank you, Sir John. I have registered for the event as an online attendee. I hope that your lecture gets a wide audience, including our parliamentarians.
February 20, 2022
I have registered too. I’m sure it will be a very interesting event, but sadly we already know the government are determined to ignore him.
February 20, 2022
Indeed rather like being the government Minister for “Women and Equality”!
February 20, 2022
I cannot make 11.30 on Friday but would be interested to watch a recording or read a transcript if available.
February 20, 2022
In the news a fire of Titanic proportions has engulfed a massive transport ship carrying electric vehicles across the Atlantic. What a waste of effort and should give food for thought…
February 20, 2022
Lithium possible cause.
EV’s I read worth nowt when battery beyond economical use in say 5-6 years as replacement cost more than car.
February 20, 2022
In the future there’ll never be ‘classic’ range of EVs….just dead unrecyclable batteries
February 20, 2022
Indeed think about (for example) the Channel Tunnel trains – no way they can ensure the EVs on board will not self ignite and battery fires can be very hard to extinguish compared to a normal fires. Many restriction on Lithium Iron batteries being flown around already.
February 20, 2022
It’s a Chinese syndrome meltdown, the fire brigade will let it burn out and someone else repairs the road….now imagine an EV fire on a ferry or train
February 20, 2022
I have decided to install solar panels. Not with an ambition to move to zero-carbon, a target that is pointless with the likes of China, India, and Russia producing carbon as they do.
I have chosen to ensure I will have accessible power at a known cost with no threat of blackouts. I have taken the salesman’s promises with a large pinch of salt but even if I get half the output promised it is still a far better investment for my money than the minuscule interest rates from savings. And electricity prices will rise.
February 20, 2022
Unless you have not only battery storage but battery back up which is expensive you will not be able to use the power from your solar panels when there is a blackout. All batteries connected to solar panels are automatically shut down during power cuts etc for safety regarding workmen who could get electrocuted. This is what I have just read but I’m not sure which system you have of course.
February 20, 2022
Some battery systems include a “bridge” subsystem which allows the house battery and solar panels to continue in operation while decoupled from the grid.
February 20, 2022
Indeed you can get a system with some 12v batteries and an inverter to drive your fridge/freezer a couple of lights, a TV/computer, the gas/oil central heating pumps… for a day or two.
February 20, 2022
I did this 4 years ago to move towards a degree of energy independence and also be able to fuel an EV for free.
February 21, 2022
So long as you only drive in summer…
February 23, 2022
Nope, I have not had one winter when the PV didn’t provide enough power over the month for a month’s driving.
| Just checked and although sky is pretty grey the panels are generating 2kW. So far today they’ve produced 8.5kWh (40 miles) and so far this month 198kWh (approx 800 miles).
Of course there will be slack periods but it has not been an issue so far.
February 20, 2022
Thanks for the invite, I have registered and look forward to your lecture.
February 20, 2022
Ironically, the richer we got the fewer children we had. Shrinkage of our population was our choice but the ruling classes reversed it against our will.
Growing population is the biggest threat to the environment. Making the general population better off is a humane way of reducing it.
Net Zero (enforced poverty) will deliver the reverse of intentions.
Poor people turn to religions which tell them to go forth and multiply. Poor people turn to welfarism which makes it worth going forth and multiplying – raising their kids as badly as possible to get High Rate dependency (ADHD is a good one.)
This has all got much worse during 12 years of Tories.
They are NOT the friends of the striving classes.
February 20, 2022
Sir John,
There is this completely false idea that because “wind is free” windmill energy is very cheap. Nothing could be further from the truth if we want to have continuous and reliable electrical energy as opposed to just when the wind blows.
Since you are in Oxford you may like to quote Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at Oxford University, from a recent interview with the BBC R4 programme “You and Yours” dated 10/02/2022.
The interview is available from BBC Sounds or a transcript by Googling “Home Truths From Dieter Helm”.
To summarise Sir Dieter Helm :
1) It is naïve to believe that we can achieve net zero other than at considerable cost and “there is a juggernaut of costs to come”.
2) We’re reliant on gas because there is no non-fossil fuel backup and the prices of electricity from intermittent renewables never include “the back-up bit, the security of supply bit, while we’ve been at the same time pursuing decarbonisation.”
3) To the Government’s claim that over the past ten years the net effect of renewables has been to reduce consumer energy bills, he said :
“It’s not true. They’re ignoring all the system implications of having that intermittency on the energy system more generally. They’re not looking at firm power, they’re looking at just the cost of, for example, the wind farm itself. And this is smoke and mirrors.”
4) When asked if unilaterally implementing net zero we’ll avoid the costs that come with climate change – the flooding, the storms, etc., Sir Dieter Helm replied :
“It’s complete nonsense, right! You know, the UK is responsible for about 1% of global emissions. Climate change is going to be determined in China, India and Africa…… And so [UK] consumers are going to pay both the costs of mitigating emissions in the UK and they’re gonna have to face up to the costs of a warmer world.”
February 21, 2022
+1
February 20, 2022
In the past I have made the 80 mile trip to Oxford to attend and found the events very interesting.
However, the idea of attending via Zoom is a very welcome addition and, of course, very green.
I’ve signed up for it.
February 20, 2022
Sounds like a great talk, Sir John. My suggestion: Can the Cabinet be made to sit in the front row, take notes, and later be tested on what they’ve learned?
February 20, 2022
Are you saying, comsermer’s should have the tax break’s on carbon and not companies or both.
February 20, 2022
Sounds like what you have said in your book Sir John. Which is fine as far as it goes BUT:-
What you do not seem to realise is that the ONLY problem with fossil fuels is that they will RUN OUT!
Oil and gas will probably run out first.
Even if we were willing to send men underground to mine coal, (we could send robots instead), steam is not a practical alternative to diesel.
Since U.K. needs to power the electric grid and power transport, internally and across the seas, surely we should be paying far more attention to things like – stockpiling uranium while we still have diesel to fetch it and encouraging research into greater use of nuclear energy for these needs.
The technology is way beyond me but we had the brains to lead the industrial revolution. I hope we still have the brains to lead in this one.
February 20, 2022
Pauline
Not forgetting the supply of potable water with the never ending invasion of immigrants, rewilding and possible contamination of the underground water systems by the chemicals used in fracking. One might care to look up ‘frackfocus’ ‘what chemicals are used’. This web site used to have a long list of such chemicals but has since been watered down I suspect at the request of the companies involved so as not to alarm.
Accidents can and do happen. What then? particularly in this relatively small densely populated island.
Desalination and or importation of water expensive needing even more energy.
February 20, 2022
China and Russia are determined to recover fully from their horrific pasts as victims of Maoism and Bolshevism; India is determined to break out of its economic pigeonhole as a third world country. We are determined to become a third world country by destroying our economy and importing as much of the third world that presents itself on our doorstep.
February 21, 2022
+1 except it is not “we” who are guilty but government, although too many still need to waken up to their globalist inspired plans.
February 21, 2022
John, The issue you need to discuss is not the best route to net zero, but the justification (indeed, lack of it) for this policy. There is a need to reduce emissions but not to beggar the country with costly and unproductive green virtue-signalling agendas.
February 21, 2022
+1
February 21, 2022
Let’s hope that the “road to net zero” is infinitely long so it never happens. It is yet another attempt to subject the world’s population to globalist control.
February 21, 2022
The Trouble With Peat: An interesting gardening article in the Daily T 19/Feb – on the use of peat & Defra’s plan to ban retail peat use by 2024 & all use by 2029. Puts forward some good arguments & figures ( e.g. miniscule proportion 0.053% of the 3 million hectares of UK peat used for horticultural extraction ) and suggests any regulation should be placed where the real problems lie and more profligate usage. Industry competitors across the Channel expect to double their use of peat by 2050 with very few to date ( only Germany & Switzerland mentioned ) proposing a ban along with the UK. It states the government’s consultation with the industry closes on March 18th.
February 21, 2022
I fear that by virtue (?) of your lecture, Sir John, you will be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. For, as you’ve summarized it here, it is based on an entirely false premise: that climate change is anthropogenic.
Climate change — as pointed out by HONEST scientists now universally ‘de-platformed’ — is a natural phenomenon: it started when the seas were parted by the land and, as long as we have sea, land and an atmosphere, can be expected to continue … at any rate till the Earth be swallowed up in the due course by a dying and expanding Sun.
Moreover, as we continue to emerge from the last glaciation[1], if we had any intelligence, we should be in no wise surprised by the Earth’s becoming warmer[2].
The fraud that has grown up around the quasi-religious belief in anthropogenic climate change — it was even dishonestly used by Margaret Thatcher to close the coal mines, thereby defeating Arthur Scargill and his N.U.M. — is the greatest threat to the well-being of mankind … far greater than that posed by the escape of a biological-warfare agent, the political over-reaction to which has, as you well know, devastated our and the World’s economy over the past two years.
The Climate Change Act, 2008, must be repealed and the ‘Net Zero’ policy ditched immediately.
Might I also — not a user of Zoom &c. technology — ask that your lecture be published later on Youtube? (No chance of its being put out by the B.B.C.; that’s for sure!)
ΠΞ
[1] This is known — and referred to by most, particularly by both politicians and the media — as ‘the last ice age’ … although we’re still in the current ice age.
[2] We might reasonably expect that, at some stage — we don’t know when — this process will be reversed. What are we to do then? We shall still be no better able to ‘combat climate change’ than we are now.
Reply Why do you want it further circulated when in advance you know it is wrong!
February 21, 2022
I infer from the summary above your belief in anthropogenic climate change; hence my comment.
That summary, however, is not the whole lecture; I’d like to hear it in full.
If you’ll be taking questions from the audience, I’d like to hear them … and your replies.
How could I judge your lecture from so little? In any case: between now and Friday, you might change your thoughts on the subject and therefore the speech itself?
Bear in mind that, you being amongst those discussed as a possible leader of the party and therefore P.M., your thoughts on any matter of policy and how you might tackle it are of general public importance. I’m interested in what you think; the electorate ought to be.
ΠΞ
February 21, 2022
The above blog is not written in clear speak.
Brian, UK Column is great at clear speak.
Clear speak is
you read it, hear it and understand it.
You don’t have to agree with it but it’s clear.
Not many are good at clear speak.
(All Souls used to be a prime recruiting ground.)
February 21, 2022
Still promoting the globalist agenda.
February 22, 2022
Carl Sagan testifying before congress in
1985 on climate change is on YouTube .
Worth listening to today – for example he explains that the greenhouse effect is a misnomer – CO2 infact absorbs infrared leading to warming and without this effect life on earth would not be possible at 30C degrees or so colder —but you have to listen to him to get a better understanding .
February 23, 2022
It seems as though many advocates of the Net Zero Strategy believe that the way forward is to accept, if not actually embrace, the intermittency of windmill power. This would of course explain why they believe windmill power will be cheaper than those who wish their electrical power to be constantly available on demand, as it is at present.
To quote Claire Dykta, Head of UK strategy National Grid when giving evidence to the HoL Industry and Regulators Committee Meeting on 02/11/2021 :
“As we move to net zero the consumer who is consuming energy in their household will have more choice about how and when they use their energy than they tend to do today.”
As you rightly say, as we move forward, prices are likely to become more volatile and in a low-carbon system, I completely agree that some volatility of pricing is important for that system to work well. However, it needs to be predictable and managed to ensure that it is not disproportionately impacted.”
[Note : Since “volatile” means “liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse” I’m not sure how it is possible for pricing to be both “volatile” and “predictable”.]
The idea is that demand should match supply and not, as currently, supply matching demand and that this can be done by variable pricing.
Firstly I do not see this as “giving more choice about how and when they use their energy then they tend to do today.” How can this be more choice than always being able to use electricity – and at a price we know – at the flick of a switch?
Secondly I wonder just how much peak demand can be moved – there must be many families who will want to arrive home on cold winter days and want to have heating, the lights on and cook hot meals for their children?
Who wants to live in an electricity supply world where the prices are “volatile” depending upon whether the wind is blowing or not and where there is every chance that there will be a blackout because there has been insufficient closing down of demand?
In this situation, who will deciding who gets power? By 2050 everybody is expected to have a smart meter than can turn off their power.
Note that Net Zero requires us to halve our power use.
I also note that many advocates of Net Zero believe that hydrogen is a source of power and will say, for instance, “the Government wants 35% of our total energy coming from hydrogen by 2050”.
Hydrogen is not a source of power. It is not mined like coal or oil or gas. It must first be produced by another primary source of power – nuclear, coal, gas, oil or the renewables – and this will be a very expensive process as the efficiency to produce hydrogen through electrolysis is 60%.
And since turbines are 60% efficient it means the total electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity cycle will only have an efficiency of 36%.
And BTW, the plan is to have a storage (technology undefined) by 2035 of 2 TWhrs which will represent about 1 and half days of supply.